As someone that has Radeons at home and work, and I find that the image quality is better than Nvidia cards I've used (TNT and GeForce 2 MX, both from Hercules). Also, the All-In-Wonder line of cards is very nice if you're looking for that kind of functionality.
How is this meant to be good for developers, or consumers? Developers now have three options:
Develop for NVidia based cards, which is slower if you have an ATI card
Develop for ATI based cards, completely ignoring the NVidia market
Develop for both, significantly adding to development effort
This is also terrible for the consumer. Sorry, but that new card you just spend a small fortune on doesn't support the pixel shader version the game you want uses. Oh well, you'll just have to upgrade to the next card, when it comes out, hope that's okay. But don't worry, it will have lots of new features too (which no-one elses card will support).
What do you think that testing is for, a quick laugh? They have all the components, and are now moving onto the debugging stage. The hardware is nowhere near "gone gold"!
You call up technical support, realise you forgot to ask them a few things, and post the questions to Slashdot?
The fact that one company has stopped making DVD-RAM drives does not mean that the drives are not made by anyone! However, I beleive the reason is likely to be that writable DVD drives, that create proper DVDs which can be read in any DVD-ROM drive, are being pushed. Although unless there is a price drop, that might be delusional on the manufacturer's part.
One of the final year comp sci projects here, reminds me of this, although AFAIK far simpler. One idea though, that was brought up during the student's presentation, is that this might work very well in a distributed computing situation.
One thing that really annoys me is the perception that it's not such a big deal when there are police raids on student accomodation. This isn't a problem I've had to deal with personally, but this is hardly the first Slashdot story that shows police being able to get into student accomodation more easily.
Why does being a student make it any different from if we were not? Raids on student accomodation should be reacted to exactly as raids on domestic homes would be.
Heck, as a college student, I can see the flaws in his argument. We had similar posts about the Microsoft X-Box and its content restriction mechanism.
To all the people that beleive that kids do exactly what their parents say, and would never *gasp* watch television their parents told them not to, you are very very far out of touch! Kids are mischievous, curious and don't actually follow instructions! Does no-one else remember being a child?
It's an unfortunate reflection on today's society that parents are at work rather than at home, and I do feel that where feasible such a situation should be avoided, but I'm sure you all have a good enough grasp on reality to realise it isn't always possible!
Could people please get this "You only need content restriction if you're a bad parent"
delusion out of their head, and look a little harder at reality?
How, exactly, do you come to that conclusion. If you are trying to do too much with your processor, the buffer will empty, and you will get a buffer under-run. If you have a drive capable of dealing with this (BURN-proof), great, but the OS shouldn't make that much of a difference. Also, can you imagine telling consumers:
"You could use that simple system, or you could use CD-Rs, although you're going to have to buy a CD writer, hook it into a SCSI or IDE interface, cannot use the computer while writing to it, and you should install Linux just to write CDs aswell."
My point however is that it tends to leave the computer unusable while the disk is written. I also strongly suspect these will be easier to write in parts (multi-session). The comment about devices was more about the number of portable devices that can read MP3 from a CD (I'm aware of just one).
I can see uses for this, to allow people to "try out" music for a day, before they spend the money on buying it permanently. I agree with you though, it would be very very bad if we had to rent our music. As an option, fine, but I don't want to be forced into it.
Except that can't happen, unless they just turn their back on every existng CD player. As far as I'm aware, anyway. They would need to either stop releasing stuff that can be read by a CD player at all, or find some method to ensure the data cannot be read into a computer (and then just copying analogue output is easy).
To me, this seems like a first step, not the end. It will mean that artists, or at least record companies, will have a method to distribute music which for a while at least they will feel comfortable with, and I think that's a great idea! But it can't suddenly stop MP3s, or anything else.
I'm less than convinced. Looking over the site, I strongly suspect that the media will be a lot easier to deal with than CD-R. CD-R, unless you have a BURN drive, has underrun problems for example. It's also significantly bigger, physically, and few portable devices support them.
Will the average user really buy a CD-R drive, and mix their own albums on CD-R, or will they go for this smaller, simpler solution?
Okay, I'm not a massive fan of the expiring keys idea, but why is everyone so strongly against this? Are you all worried that suddenly you may have to pay for something you use?
I've heard, and agree with, the argument against recording companies. Okay, so can anyone tell me why this media means that artists can't offer music downloads from their site, as well as allowing people to buy keys?
Personally, I like this idea. It means I can go out, download music & key, and play it instantly. It's portable, and doesn't interfere with existing systems in the way that implementing copy control in harddrives does.
Brilliant, okay, Firewire then. However, I'm still not persuaded by the argument a few people have put forward that Firewire devices that can talk to each other are such a hot idea. This would require far more intelligence in each device than I feel is necessary.
For example, in my original model, a digital receiver simply sends the input stream it receives to whatever asks for it. In the alternative model, it has to be aware of hard drives, removable storage, displays, modems (or other network link) etc. Also, a central box can hold other hardware that it would be excessive to give individual Firewire connections too, such as an IR receiver.
It would depend on what the box was set up to do. I'd have considered it relatively trivial to create a box that includes the ability to copy from one HD to another.
It does depend on what the manufactuers make the box do, but I'd be suprised if hacks (similar to multi-region for DVD) don't appear.
Okay, yep, wasn't aware that much bandwidth was necessary. However, as has been pointed out, USB 2 is more than fast enough (at 480 MBits/second). While Firewire does provide the speed now (and Sony even has a hi-fi system that links together using Firewire), it is more expensive, and AFAIK there is no way of getting hubs for Firewire. Hubs, you see, would mean that it doesn't matter how many sockets your original hardware has, just buy a hub and you can plug as much as you want in!
Basically, everything is going digital. The flat displays (such as the ones discussed just a few stories ago) can take digital input, and material can easily be recorded digitally, so why should the content ever become analogue.
So, the material is recorded, encoded into MPEG or similar, and broadcast. You have a digital receiver, which receives the material, and then sends it over, say, USB cabling, into a control box, which seperates out the audio and visual, and sends them to the right system.
Now expand on this. You have a digital receiver, a hard drive (or two), a DVD-ROM drive, a control box, and a console. All items plug into a standard USB hub (possibly integrated into the control box).
To play a game, you put a DVD into the drive, and the console then contacts the DVD-ROM drive directly, pulling data off as necessary.
To play a DVD, you put the DVD into the same drive, and hit play on your remote control (which is linked to the control box).
TiVo functionality is built into the same box, which automatically detects HDs it can access, and all it has to do to record data is copy the incoming MPEG stream to the HD.
Very little duplication of components, and absolutely no loss of image/audio quality.
Oh, and yes, Firewire would work perfectly well in place of USB, although USB is cheaper and should do the job fine I feel. And before someone says that manufacturers could never be persuaded to let digital signals be sent around like that, the signals could of course be encrypted between devices, but a discussion of that is far beyond the scope of this post.
Oh no, software vendors may only release to systems they feel are secure!
Okay, I'm not exactly a fan of CPRM, but as long as software vendors make it clear that their software will not work without CPRM, I wouldn't call it unscrupulous. Stupid, given how many people won't have the drives, but not unscrupulous.
On top of which, the main purpose for this appears to be protecting digital music/video from being copied; even if they are only made available to people with CPRM hard-drives, it's not exactly as if you can buy legal MP3s of your favourite group, at the moment, is it (I know there are exceptions, I'm talking about the majority of cases).
What I mean is, if CPRM is implemented, and music/video is only made available to those with CPRM harddrives, those without aren't going to actually lose anything.
Perhaps, but isn't it better to have people comfortable with the desktop, than nothing at all? Most people don't have the time to devote to learning the command line, even if they did want to. Or should computers be made less accessible, rather than more?
A few hundred years ago, only a few people could read or write, now almost everyone can. Perhaps progress will happen in a similar way with computers.
For complicated concepts, sure. The desktop is designed to perform simple things however, generally consisting of a verb and noun (load program.exe, delete rubbish.txt, etc.).
The other problem is that the UNIX command line has some pretty odd command names (could you guess what "ps" does? "grep"? "troff"?). You need to be trained to use a command line, any command line, while most people can pick up how to use a desktop far faster!
Slashdot Mirror
As someone that has Radeons at home and work, and I find that the image quality is better than Nvidia cards I've used (TNT and GeForce 2 MX, both from Hercules). Also, the All-In-Wonder line of cards is very nice if you're looking for that kind of functionality.
How is this meant to be good for developers, or consumers? Developers now have three options:
This is also terrible for the consumer. Sorry, but that new card you just spend a small fortune on doesn't support the pixel shader version the game you want uses. Oh well, you'll just have to upgrade to the next card, when it comes out, hope that's okay. But don't worry, it will have lots of new features too (which no-one elses card will support).
"Just unplug your computer" Okay, sure, it works, but there's something wrong with having to force the system not to send your data!
Errr... wouldn't it just make sense for them to both tap the original cable, because tapping the tap wouldn't give them any more information!
"Now all they have left is testing,"
What do you think that testing is for, a quick laugh? They have all the components, and are now moving onto the debugging stage. The hardware is nowhere near "gone gold"!
You call up technical support, realise you forgot to ask them a few things, and post the questions to Slashdot?
The fact that one company has stopped making DVD-RAM drives does not mean that the drives are not made by anyone! However, I beleive the reason is likely to be that writable DVD drives, that create proper DVDs which can be read in any DVD-ROM drive, are being pushed. Although unless there is a price drop, that might be delusional on the manufacturer's part.
One of the final year comp sci projects here, reminds me of this, although AFAIK far simpler. One idea though, that was brought up during the student's presentation, is that this might work very well in a distributed computing situation.
Perhaps this will be the next SETI@home ?
One thing that really annoys me is the perception that it's not such a big deal when there are police raids on student accomodation. This isn't a problem I've had to deal with personally, but this is hardly the first Slashdot story that shows police being able to get into student accomodation more easily.
Why does being a student make it any different from if we were not? Raids on student accomodation should be reacted to exactly as raids on domestic homes would be.
Heck, as a college student, I can see the flaws in his argument. We had similar posts about the Microsoft X-Box and its content restriction mechanism.
To all the people that beleive that kids do exactly what their parents say, and would never *gasp* watch television their parents told them not to, you are very very far out of touch! Kids are mischievous, curious and don't actually follow instructions! Does no-one else remember being a child?
It's an unfortunate reflection on today's society that parents are at work rather than at home, and I do feel that where feasible such a situation should be avoided, but I'm sure you all have a good enough grasp on reality to realise it isn't always possible!
Could people please get this "You only need content restriction if you're a bad parent" delusion out of their head, and look a little harder at reality?
How, exactly, do you come to that conclusion. If you are trying to do too much with your processor, the buffer will empty, and you will get a buffer under-run. If you have a drive capable of dealing with this (BURN-proof), great, but the OS shouldn't make that much of a difference. Also, can you imagine telling consumers:
"You could use that simple system, or you could use CD-Rs, although you're going to have to buy a CD writer, hook it into a SCSI or IDE interface, cannot use the computer while writing to it, and you should install Linux just to write CDs aswell."
My point however is that it tends to leave the computer unusable while the disk is written. I also strongly suspect these will be easier to write in parts (multi-session). The comment about devices was more about the number of portable devices that can read MP3 from a CD (I'm aware of just one).
I can see uses for this, to allow people to "try out" music for a day, before they spend the money on buying it permanently. I agree with you though, it would be very very bad if we had to rent our music. As an option, fine, but I don't want to be forced into it.
The fact that you dislike of their advertising methods does not mean they are doomed to fail!
Except that can't happen, unless they just turn their back on every existng CD player. As far as I'm aware, anyway. They would need to either stop releasing stuff that can be read by a CD player at all, or find some method to ensure the data cannot be read into a computer (and then just copying analogue output is easy).
To me, this seems like a first step, not the end. It will mean that artists, or at least record companies, will have a method to distribute music which for a while at least they will feel comfortable with, and I think that's a great idea! But it can't suddenly stop MP3s, or anything else.
I'm less than convinced. Looking over the site, I strongly suspect that the media will be a lot easier to deal with than CD-R. CD-R, unless you have a BURN drive, has underrun problems for example. It's also significantly bigger, physically, and few portable devices support them.
Will the average user really buy a CD-R drive, and mix their own albums on CD-R, or will they go for this smaller, simpler solution?
Okay, I'm not a massive fan of the expiring keys idea, but why is everyone so strongly against this? Are you all worried that suddenly you may have to pay for something you use?
I've heard, and agree with, the argument against recording companies. Okay, so can anyone tell me why this media means that artists can't offer music downloads from their site, as well as allowing people to buy keys?
Personally, I like this idea. It means I can go out, download music & key, and play it instantly. It's portable, and doesn't interfere with existing systems in the way that implementing copy control in harddrives does.
Brilliant, okay, Firewire then. However, I'm still not persuaded by the argument a few people have put forward that Firewire devices that can talk to each other are such a hot idea. This would require far more intelligence in each device than I feel is necessary.
For example, in my original model, a digital receiver simply sends the input stream it receives to whatever asks for it. In the alternative model, it has to be aware of hard drives, removable storage, displays, modems (or other network link) etc. Also, a central box can hold other hardware that it would be excessive to give individual Firewire connections too, such as an IR receiver.
It would depend on what the box was set up to do. I'd have considered it relatively trivial to create a box that includes the ability to copy from one HD to another.
It does depend on what the manufactuers make the box do, but I'd be suprised if hacks (similar to multi-region for DVD) don't appear.
Okay, yep, wasn't aware that much bandwidth was necessary. However, as has been pointed out, USB 2 is more than fast enough (at 480 MBits/second). While Firewire does provide the speed now (and Sony even has a hi-fi system that links together using Firewire), it is more expensive, and AFAIK there is no way of getting hubs for Firewire. Hubs, you see, would mean that it doesn't matter how many sockets your original hardware has, just buy a hub and you can plug as much as you want in!
Basically, everything is going digital. The flat displays (such as the ones discussed just a few stories ago) can take digital input, and material can easily be recorded digitally, so why should the content ever become analogue.
So, the material is recorded, encoded into MPEG or similar, and broadcast. You have a digital receiver, which receives the material, and then sends it over, say, USB cabling, into a control box, which seperates out the audio and visual, and sends them to the right system.
Now expand on this. You have a digital receiver, a hard drive (or two), a DVD-ROM drive, a control box, and a console. All items plug into a standard USB hub (possibly integrated into the control box).
To play a game, you put a DVD into the drive, and the console then contacts the DVD-ROM drive directly, pulling data off as necessary.
To play a DVD, you put the DVD into the same drive, and hit play on your remote control (which is linked to the control box).
TiVo functionality is built into the same box, which automatically detects HDs it can access, and all it has to do to record data is copy the incoming MPEG stream to the HD.
Very little duplication of components, and absolutely no loss of image/audio quality.
Oh, and yes, Firewire would work perfectly well in place of USB, although USB is cheaper and should do the job fine I feel. And before someone says that manufacturers could never be persuaded to let digital signals be sent around like that, the signals could of course be encrypted between devices, but a discussion of that is far beyond the scope of this post.
Oh no, software vendors may only release to systems they feel are secure!
Okay, I'm not exactly a fan of CPRM, but as long as software vendors make it clear that their software will not work without CPRM, I wouldn't call it unscrupulous. Stupid, given how many people won't have the drives, but not unscrupulous.
On top of which, the main purpose for this appears to be protecting digital music/video from being copied; even if they are only made available to people with CPRM hard-drives, it's not exactly as if you can buy legal MP3s of your favourite group, at the moment, is it (I know there are exceptions, I'm talking about the majority of cases).
What I mean is, if CPRM is implemented, and music/video is only made available to those with CPRM harddrives, those without aren't going to actually lose anything.
Information on burnable credit-card sizeed CD-ROMs is available at:
http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/faq07.html#[7-15]
Perhaps, but isn't it better to have people comfortable with the desktop, than nothing at all? Most people don't have the time to devote to learning the command line, even if they did want to. Or should computers be made less accessible, rather than more?
A few hundred years ago, only a few people could read or write, now almost everyone can. Perhaps progress will happen in a similar way with computers.
For complicated concepts, sure. The desktop is designed to perform simple things however, generally consisting of a verb and noun (load program.exe, delete rubbish.txt, etc.).
The other problem is that the UNIX command line has some pretty odd command names (could you guess what "ps" does? "grep"? "troff"?). You need to be trained to use a command line, any command line, while most people can pick up how to use a desktop far faster!
Okay, lets do this backwards. Start with £299.99. Divide by 1.175 (to remove VAT):
299.99 / 1.175 = £255.31 before VAT
Multiply by 1.6 to convert to US $:
255.31 * 1.6 = 408.50
Leaving a difference of $108.50. Given that if you multiply £299.99 you get $480, this is almost $70 in VAT.
But yeah, point taken, $108.50 is a lot of extra.